How to dispose of sofas, chairs, cushions and beanbags in Cambridgeshire

All nine household waste recycling centres in Cambridgeshire will accept upholstered seating again from Saturday (January 7).

Cambridgeshire County Council made the announcement today (Friday) and apologised to residents for the sudden restrictions last week.

It said an interim solution for accepting waste items such as sofas, upholstered chairs, cushions, and beanbags had been found.

The decision also means bulky waste collections offered by the county’s city and district councils can resume.

Steve Cox, executive director of place and sustainability at the county council, said: “We don’t underestimate the concerns last week’s sudden announcement will have caused many of our residents, and we would like to apologise to them for that, and thank them for their patience and understanding.

“Changes to the way we are allowed to safely dispose of these items meant we were given an extremely short timeframe to deal with waste that could no longer be put into landfill, which had to be stored separately from any other waste before being incinerated.

“As a county council that traditionally doesn’t use incineration for its waste, we didn’t have an easy or immediate solution to hand.”

Cllr Lorna Dupre, chair of the authority’s environment and green investment committee, added: “We are extremely grateful to our partners across the whole system including our contractor Thalia who has worked with us at pace over the past week, from the date it was confirmed to us by the Environment Agency that we would be in breach of legislation from January 1.

“This has meant we now have safe and compliant temporary solutions to allow us to continue to accept this waste until we are able to dispose of it safely by incineration.”

Staff will be available at each of the recycling centre sites to advise and show residents where they can dispose of upholstered household seating.

Residents are also reminded that there are alternatives to taking upholstered household seating to recycling centres, including asking retailers to take your old furniture away when new items are delivered or by donating it to a charity, selling it, or giving it away on social media.

Last week, Cllr Anna Bailey, leader of East Cambridgeshire District Council, said the announcement left no time for alternative arrangements to be made.

Cllr Bailey said: “It is very disappointing to learn this will be coming into force on January 1 before alternative arrangements can be put in place.”

Timeline

• Legislation on the disposal of POPs (persistent organic pollutants) was implemented in the UK in 2007 and came into force on December 3, 2007 but at the time it did not make any reference to upholstered domestic seating.
• The 2007 legislation has been amended several times to reflect changes owing to technical and scientific advancements including additions to the list of POPs.
• The regulation was recast on June 20, 2019 as Regulation 2019/1021, and it is this Regulation, as amended by the Persistent Organic Pollutants (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022, that is the current legislation governing this issue in the UK.
• The EA’s web-based guidance was updated in June 2020 and made no specific mention of the potential presence of POPs in upholstered domestic seating.
• The EA contacted councils and operators of Household Waste Recycling Centres in August 2022 to issue draft guidance about the inclusion of upholstered domestic seating waste affected by POPs.
• At this time 55 per cent of local authorities who responded to a survey by LARAC (Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee) said they did not believe they could be compliant with the regulations by the deadline of December 31.
• Cambridgeshire raised serious concerns with DEFRA and the EA throughout the Autumn, while working with our contractor to find compliant operators to deal with the waste.
• Operators were not willing to enter into agreements until the final guidance was published by the EA.
• The final EA guidance was published on December 19, 2022, which confirmed upholstered domestic seating waste affected by POPs would be included and confirmed that the council would not be compliant with legislation if a solution was not in place from January 1, 2023.
• Confirmation of this advice was immediately sought by Cambridgeshire County Council, and received on December 23.